Savers

"This article is about the US Savers - for the UK Health and Beauty store see Savers (UK). For Digimon Savers, see Digimon Data Squad"Infobox_Company
company_name = Savers, Inc.
company_


company_type = Thrift store
foundation = 1954 San Francisco, California
location = Bellevue, Washington
industry = Retail
products = Second hand clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, electronics, toys, and housewares.
homepage = http://www.savers.com

Savers, Inc. headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, is a privately held for-profit thrift store chain offering secondhand shopping. An international company, Savers has more than 200 locations throughout the United States, Canada and Australia, and receives its merchandise by paying cash to non-profit organizations for donated clothing and household items. Savers is known as Value Village in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and Village des Valeurs in Quebec. In Australia and other regions of the United States, the stores share the corporation's name. The company is privately owned. ["The Debaters" "CBC Radio" October 11, 2008]

Business

Under Savers’s business model, the company partners with local non-profits by purchasing and reselling donated items. The non-profits collect and deliver donated goods to Savers, which pays them for the items at a bulk rate regardless of whether they ever make it to the sales floor. Donations are also collected at stores directly, and the company makes payments to its non-profit partners when it receives goods this way. Savers has more than 160 non-profit partners throughout the United States, Canada and Australia, which it pays more than $117 million annually.

Items deemed resellable are displayed for purchase in stores. Savers has an aggressive recycling program and attempts to recycle any reusable items that cannot be sold at the stores, as well as any items that do not sell over a period of time to make room for fresh merchandise. Savers has buyers for its recyclables throughout the world and attempts to keep as much donated product out of the waste stream as possible.

Cultural Influence

Value Village has been used in contemporary fiction to signal frugality or families in hard times. In an episode of the sitcom series Malcolm in the Middle Lois and the family are headed to shop for clothes for the boys at Value Village. The cover of the Die Mannequin album "Slaughter Daughter" contains two porcelain cats, one of which has a price tag from Value Village on it.

References

Not exactly owned by Walmart. The CBC corrected themselves on 10/11/08

External links

* [http://www.savers.com/ Savers's Web site]
* [http://www.valuevillage.com/ Value Village's Web site]
* [http://www.villagedesvaleurs.com/main/interim.html Village des Valeurs's Web site]